Mr. Overton raised his eyebrows. “He is indisputably the best dialect writer we have, and he is a charming exponent of surface passions. Whether he would drown if he plunged below the surface is a question; at all events he might become improper, and morality pays in this magazine era. There he is now; no doubt we shall have a delightful address.”
Hermia turned her head quickly, but Cryder had taken a chair at the foot of the rostrum, and there were many heads between her own and his. A moment later, however, the president of the club made the preliminary remarks, and then gave place to Cryder.
Hermia watched him breathlessly as he ascended the steps and stood beside the table, waiting for the hearty welcome to subside. Was it he at last? He was certainly good to look at; she had never seen more charming eyes—clear golden-hazel, half melancholy, wholly intelligent. His small, well-shaped head was thickly covered with short, soft, gold-brown hair; the delicate, aristocratic features were as finely cut as those on an intaglio; and the thin, curved lips were shaded by a small mustache. His figure, tall, light, graceful, had a certain vibrating activity even in repose. His hand was white and tapering as that of a woman, and his auditors were given opportunity to appreciate it.
The subject of the lecture was “The Dialect Element in American Fiction,” and Mr. Cryder did it justice in a clear, ringing, musical voice. He very properly remarked that it was the proud boast of America that no other country, ancient or modern, could present such an array of famous dialects, consequently no other country had ever had such infinite variety in her literature. He would say nothing of the several hundred dialects as yet awaiting the Columbus-pen of genius; he would merely speak of those nine already discovered and immortalized—the Negro, the Yankee, the Southern, the Creole, the Tennessee Mountain, the Cow-boy, the Bret Harte Miner, the Hoosier, and the Chinese. Each of these, although springing from one bosom, namely, that of the Great American People, had as distinct an individuality as if the product of an isolated planet. Such a feature was unique in the history of any country or any time. The various patois of the French, the provincialisms of the English, the barbarisms of the Scotch, the brogue of the Irish, were but so many bad and inconsequent variations upon an original theme. Reflect, therefore, upon the immense importance of photographing and preserving American neologies for the benefit of posterity! In the course of time would inevitably come the homogeneity of the human race; the negro, for instance, would pervade every corner of the civilized earth, and his identity become hopelessly entangled with that of his equally de-individualized blonde brother. His dialect would be a forgotten art! Contemporaries would have no knowledge of it save through the painstaking artists of their ancestors’ time. Reflect, then, upon the heavy responsibility which lay upon the shoulders of the author of to-day. Picture what must be the condition of his conscience at the end of his record if he has failed to do his duty by the negro dialect! Picture the reproaches of future generations if they should be left ignorant of the unique vernacular of their grandfathers’ serfs! (Applause.) He did not lay such stress upon the superior importance of the negro dialect because he had enrolled himself among its faulty exponents; he had taken his place in its ranks because of that superior importance. Nevertheless, he was by no means blind to the virtues of those other eight delightful strings in the Great National Instrument. No one enjoyed more than he the liquid and incomprehensible softness of the Creole, the penetrating, nasonic strength of the Yankee, the delicious independence of the Hoosier, the pine-sweet, redwood-calm transcriptions of the prose-laureate of the West. He loved them all, and he gloried in the literary monument of which they were the separate stones.
To do Mr. Cryder’s oration justice would be a feat which no modest novelist would attempt. Those who would read that memorable speech in its entirety and its purity will find it in the archives of the club, in the sixth volume of the Sessional Records. After reading brief and pithy extracts from the nine most famous dialect stories of the day, he sat down with the applause of approval in his ears.
Hermia turned to Mr. Overton: “He was guying, I suppose,” she said.
Mr. Overton stared. “Certainly not,” he said, severely. “The value of precisely rendered dialect is incalculable.”
Hermia, quite snubbed, said no more; and in a few moments, Mr. Duncan, a shrewd, humorous-looking little Scotchman, rose to reply.
“I have nothing whatever to say in contradiction to Mr. Cryder’s remarks regarding the value of dialect,” he said, looking about with a bland, deprecating smile. “On the contrary, I have yet another word to add in its favor. I hold that the value of dialect to the American author has never yet been estimated. When a story has a lot of dialect, you never discover that it hasn’t anything else. (Laughter, and a surprised frown from Cryder.) Furthermore, as America is too young to have an imagination, the dialect is an admirable and original substitute for plot and situations.” (Laughter and mutterings; also a scowl from Cryder.) “Again, there is nothing so difficult as the handling of modern English: it is a far speedier and easier road to fame to manipulate a dialect familiar to only an insignificant section of our glorious sixty millions.” (“Hear, hear!” from a pair of feminine lips, and many sympathetic glances at Cryder’s flashing eyes.) “Yet again, the common fault found with our (I wish it understood that I speak always from the standpoint of the country which I have adopted)—with our writers is lack of passion. Now, nobody can be expected to be passionate when groaning in the iron stays of dialect. Dialect is bit and curb to the emotions, and it is only an American who is sharp enough to perceive the fact and make the most of it. What is more, pathos sounds much better in dialect than in cold, bald English, just as impropriety sounds better in French, and love-making in Spanish. Contrast, for instance, the relative pathos of such sentences as these—the throbbing sadness of the one, the harsh bathos of the other: ‘I done lubbed you, Sally!’ ‘I loved you, Maria.’” (Laughter from one side of the house; ominous silence from the other.) “Truly, ’tis in the setting the jewel shines. I would like to say, in conclusion,” he went on, imperturbably, “that Mr. Cryder, in his enumeration of American neologics has omitted one as important and distinctive as any in his category, namely, that of fashionable society. In the virility, the variety, and the amplitude of her slang, America is England’s most formidable rival.”
He left the platform amidst limited applause, and then Mr. Cryder’s pent-up wrath burst forth, and he denounced in scathing terms and stinging epigrams the foreigner who had proved himself incapable of appreciating one of his country’s most remarkable developments, and attempted to satirize it from his petty point of view.